In
the circuit court of Cook County, this defendant was charged with computer
tampering in 2008. An arraignment was set for June 18 of that year, but the
docket sheet, the judgeís half sheet, and the court call sheet for that date
indicate that the defendant was not in court and that the arraignment did not
take place.

The
defendant later obtained an official court transcript of the June 18, 2008,
proceeding and found that it stated that she was present and arraigned on that
date. Her efforts to have the court reporter change the transcript were
unsuccessful, and she was referred to the assistant administrator of the court
reporterís office, who told her that the matter had to be presented to the
judge. Melongo would later argue that she had a reasonable suspicion that a
fraud had been committed by the court reporterís office. In three subsequent
telephone conversations with the assistant administrator, the defendant
surreptitiously recorded those conversations and posted the recordings and
transcripts on her website. She was subsequently charged with eavesdropping and
divulging information obtained through eavesdropping. Those charges, and the
validity of the statute under which they were brought, are at issue here.

At
Melongoís trial on the eavesdropping charges, a mistrial was declared, and the
case was reassigned to a different judge.

Melongo
subsequently filed a motion before the new judge to have the statute declared
unconstitutional on first amendment and due process grounds. In ruling on that
motion, the circuit court looked to A.C.L.U.
v. Alvarez, 679 F.3d 583 (7th Cir. 2012), from the Seventh Circuit. That
federal ruling had found that the plaintiff in that case had a strong
likelihood of success in a first amendment claim that the Illinois
eavesdropping statute was unconstitutional as applied to a plan to record
police officers performing their duties in public places. In ruling in this
case, the circuit court found the eavesdropping statute unconstitutional both
facially and as applied. This direct appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court
followed.

In
this decision, the supreme court said that its analysis was guided by its
holding in People v. Clark, 2014 IL
115776, announced on the same day as this case, in which the court held the
eavesdropping statute violative of the first amendment to the United States
Constitution under the overbreadth doctrine. Here, the supreme court said again
that the statute is simply too broad in deeming all conversations to be private
and not subject to recording absent consent, even if the participants have no
expectation of privacy, and in also criminalizing the publication of those
recordings. All of this burdens substantially more speech than is necessary to
serve any legitimate interest in protecting conversational privacy, making the
statute invalid on its face. This defendant cannot constitutionally be
prosecuted for divulging the conversations she recorded.